


Forgiveness

by Natterina



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Reunion Fic, Romance, break up fic, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 07:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4952341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natterina/pseuds/Natterina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavellan stands before the oak door, her hands wringing together nervously.</p><p>It has been three months since she was last in Skyhold.</p><p>Three months since she broke Cullen’s heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgiveness

Lavellan stands before the oak door, her hands wringing together nervously.

It has been three months since she was last in Skyhold.

Three months since she broke Cullen’s heart.

He had caught her eye during the crisis with Corypheus and the breach, but Lavellan had been nothing if not sensible and pushed away any and all thoughts of romantic liaisons with her companions. She had flirted, harmlessly, with the handsome commander of her troops, but she had never pushed and Cullen had never taken more than what was given.

It had been  _after_ the closing of the breach for good that her feelings stirred into something more. It had been when the party was dying down, when Cullen had found her crying at how overwhelming it all was in the undercroft with none but the mountains for company. He had awkwardly given her his fur mantle to keep her warm, and allowed her to cry into his shoulder whilst she let it out.

Things had changed, after that. Without the presence of Corypheus looming over the inquisition, Lavellan had fallen in love with her commander in the spaces between missions and rift closing. She hadn’t realised it until the winter six months after the fall of Corypheus, when Cullen had brought her flowers and a kiss with a smile she had suddenly noticed held love rather than affection, and her own heart burst with love and  _fear_.

Her brain went into overdrive; her heart hammering, Lavellan had suddenly been hit with prejudices she thought herself rid of. All she could think of was how she was betraying her people, falling in love with a  _shem_ of all things, and how she was no longer free to do as she pleased. Lavellan had known, in that moment of horrible clarity, that she could  _not_ continue a relationship with Cullen if the tiny voice in her head kept whispering  _shem_ every time she thought of him.

So Lavellan left. She had packed her things up overnight in a delirious panicked haze, and informed Josephine that she would be taking a month of leave, followed by two months of working closely with her keeps across Ferelden and Orlais.

Once safely ensconced within her clan back in the Free Marches, Lavellan begged her Keeper for advice and, with Deshanna’s scolding, began to overcome those last remnants of prejudices that she had grown up with.

The letters awaiting her at Caer Bronach had made her realise what a mistake she had made. Josephine reported the latest diplomatic affairs at Skyhold, with a small side note on Cullen’s attempts to hide his heartbreak. A letter from Cullen had been horrible to read: the first half was scrawled out to be unreadable, and the second half was a polite but toneless request to close rifts nearby.

The lack of familiarity in that letter had hurt Lavellan, but she knew it could not hurt more than her hasty departure, when she had left only a note that she could not continue as they were. Cassandra and Varric joined her at Caer Bronach, and their updates only made her regret her decision even more. Cassandra had been almost  _cold_ towards her at first, her friendship to Cullen coming in stronger than her own friendship with Lavellan.

But by the gods, Lavellan had  _missed_ him. She missed his smile, his warmth and his steady presence, how he would make her laugh with small witty comments when they worked together in her rooms. She missed their secret kisses on the battlements, the feeling of his arms wrapped around her on cool crisp mornings, and hot lips on hot skin, the way her stomach fluttered when she found herself the object of his gaze. The freedom she had wanted consisted of nothing more than regret, sleepless nights and miserably missing her commander.

* * *

 

She has been back at Skyhold two days now, since the end of her two months devoted to clearing out rifts in Ferelden, and still she has not bumped into Cullen. It had taken a message, requesting him to visit her, to get a response from him via his messenger. It read:

_I have no appointments between lunch and dinner, if you wish to visit me in my office._

It had not been signed, and there was no mention of Lavellan’s invitation for him to come to her. But she is in no position to argue, and so here she stands before the oak door, as nervous as she was that day at the Conclave, but with far more to personally lose if this goes wrong.

She knocks sharply on the door, and there is a pause too long not to be calculated before Cullen responds with a sharp “enter”.

He is seated when Lavellan enters; he does not get up even when he sees her, but Lavellan does not notice as she drinks him in like a thirsty man at a desert oasis. There is a hardness in his features that he lacked before, but Lavellan is sure that is merely the result of her presence. He looks marginally thinner, with darker circles under his eyes, and  _that_ Lavellan knows is a result of his nightmares and withdrawal symptoms. Cullen watches her with guarded eyes, and Lavellan feels her heart break slightly at the coldness in their depths.

Still, he keeps things polite and professional as she sits down opposite him, engaging her in small talk regarding her efforts in Ferelden and her time spent in the Free Marches with her clan. Lavellan politely asks about his family and, of all things, the weather in Skyhold whilst she’s been absent. Some of his guard goes down, but the wall between them remains up and sturdy until she can bring the topic around to her leaving and breaking off their relationship.

The conversation dies down, and Lavellan sits opposite Cullen in an awkward silence that she does not know how to break. Cullen watches her with a look in his eye, almost as though he is testing her in the silent moments that pass between them. When she says nothing, Cullen shuffles his papers with a heavy sigh.

“Inquisitor, I find myself terribly busy lately, and so I would appreciate solitude to get on with my work.” Cullen stands from his chair, politely but firmly beckoning towards the door. Lavellan remains seated.

“Forgive me.” It is a pained whisper, but at the sound Cullen snaps his gaze back to her. He observes her for only a moment before he slowly sits back down and leans back against his chair. He says no words, and Lavellan continues frantically.

“I panicked, Cullen, I don’t have any excuse better than that. All I could think was that I realised I love you, and then I just kept thinking again and again on how I’d betrayed my clan, these  _stupid_ prejudices that the Dalish grow up with, they were ingrained into me and I couldn’t get past the fact you were human. And I wanted freedom, and all I’ve ever heard about human relationships is that women are supposed to be quiet and calm and I know  _now_ that’s wrong but all I wanted was freedom and all I could see was trappings from every side, and a clan that would hate me.

‘But now I know how much of an idiot I was to believe  _any_ of that, and I don’t care what my clan would think if I were to be with you, because that’s all I want from now on. Cullen, I’ve done nothing but  _miss_ you these past months, and I’ve never regretted anything more than ending what we had. I don’t know what either of our futures hold, but I hope to the gods they’re entwined, because if there’s one thing I desperately want in mine, it’s you.”

Lavellan’s legs are shaking like a leaf when she finishes speaking; her heart pounds in her chest and she is sure there is a sweat on the back of her neck. During the course of her speech Cullen had stood up and moved to look out the window, his face turned away from her as she spoke. She knows it is so she cannot see his face, lest her words contain something awful.

Cullen doesn’t speak for nearly a minute, and Lavellan cannot tell his thought process from his posture. She is nearly sick from terror at his possible response: she does not know what she will do if he tells her to leave, to forget about the broken fragments of their relationship.

Finally, he speaks.

“And are you… I mean, ah, are you sure you have gotten past these prejudices?” He turns to look at her then, and there is a small amount of hope in his eyes that has slipped past his guard. “You must know I can’t allow myself to let you back in if there is a chance you will do this again.”  _Those_ words are delivered with a harshness that Lavellan knows is well deserved.

“No, never again. It was only ever a result of panic, Cullen. I realised I loved you, and it scared me, but it will never happen again if you forgive me.”  _Something_ in the way she speaks sparks a heat in Cullen’s eyes, as though her conviction and bared heart convinces him to lower his guard more. He moves slowly around the desk to the end of her side, and looks down at her cautiously.

“And if you panic again?”

“I won’t, but if I do I will come straight to you, and you can talk me down from it. But after these last three months without you, I know that no panic will make me want to leave you.”

Cullen moves closer to her as she speaks, and holds out a hand for her to take when she finishes speaking. Lavellan takes it, and is pulled to her feet and dragged closer to him until her body is  _almost_ flush against his armour, and her face only inches from his own.

“No more running?”

“No more. Never again.” Lavellan’s eyes flutter closed and her lips part slightly, waiting,  _desperately_ waiting for him to kiss her. One hand slipping down to the small of her back to pull her even closer, Cullen finally kisses her as Lavellan’s hands go up to tighten in the fur of his mantle. Lavellan feels her heart burst with joy and relief as the kiss deepens, and she reluctantly pulls back to look up at him.

Most, if not all, of his guard has dropped and his eyes burn with the same joy she knows is reflected in her own, and he rests his forehead against her own with the tiniest of smiles.

“So, do you forgive me?”

Cullen gives her an amused shake of his head before kissing her  _hard_ , and pulls back with the small smile she had missed so much.

“Yes, you know the answer is  _yes_.”

* * *

 Fifteen months later, when Lavellan responds to his proposal at the Winter Palace with a grin and his words from that fateful day, Cullen pulls her into a kiss that is full of relief and utter  _happiness_.


End file.
